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Tuesday, August 20, 2013

When I quit my job about 8 years
back, I realized, after 6 years of working, my accumulated savings were less
than what I had paid as Income tax in these years. If you add to this the
interest on the income tax and the indirect taxes, my savings might have been
half. I felt bad about it. Really bad. Was I working to earn for our lousy government
so that it can sue my hard earned money to build savings of ‘insiders’.

Last 8
years have been very different. That ratio has changed significantly for better.
Not by stealing taxes but by reducing my earnings and expenses. While I must
admit, lot of it has been unplanned and unintentional; I feel better, lot
better.

Less
money means one is less worried about property prices, stock market, bond prices,
interest rates etc. That means a lot of worry free time that one can use for more
enjoyable things. While I have been on this path by sheer luck, I know of
several friends who have chosen this path after lot of deliberation. One
recommended reading on the topic is ‘Subtraction’ by one
of these friends.

Ok. Enough
of bhumika. This blog is about
Naturopathy and I intend to explain its basic premise of “less is more” through
an anecdote. Couple of years back, my then 3 year old son contracted conjunctivitis.
He almost ignored it and by next day he was fine. Next was my wife’s turn. She
tried some remedies but not too many and was fine by third day. And then it was
me. I was very restless. Could not afford to waste my time just resting J So, I tried several natural remedies and
utilized free time to play games on computer, phone, and do whatever else
possible. It took me full 5 days to recover.

Naturopathy
relies a lot on body’s ability to self correct and recover. We just try to help
body in the process without obstructing its functioning. Key is to provide
nutrition through easy to digest nutrient rich food (mostly raw fruits and
vegetables), cut calories and provide physical and mental rest so that body can
focus on making repairs. We try and aid this process through some treatments to
improve blood circulation in affected areas or using external forces to do things
that body might be finding difficult to do in its current weakened state.

Most of the time our patients insist on more treatments, thinking
that would give them maximum bang for the buck. Sometimes we succumb to their
arguments and recommend some ‘filler’ treatments. A clear observation is that
patients who have a very hectic day at the center take longer to recover. Isn’t
it obvious that to reach equilibrium or say to re-establish it, we need to do
less. Intelligent doctors prescribe fewer medicines, not more. But mostly we
try to bring the balance through active intervention. Suppressing that fever
through a paracetamol, suppressing that infection through an antibiotic, suppressing
that pain through a pain killer. Next time you get a fever just try taking the
day off – resting and fasting. That is what my son does and perhaps most
children would do if left to themselves. Hopefully, we’ll always have the
courage to let him do it. Hopefully I’ll someday learn it from him J